There’s still lots to do’

Tuesday

The last four years have been a struggle to get things done to help the 29th Congressional District, said U.S. Rep. John “Randy” Kuhl during an interview at The Evening Tribune Friday afternoon.

The last four years have been a struggle to get things done to help the 29th Congressional District, said U.S. Rep. John “Randy” Kuhl during an interview at The Evening Tribune Friday afternoon.

“There’s still lots to do,” the two-term congressman said. “There hasn’t been much change in my perception.”

When Kuhl first was elected as long-term representative Amory Houghton retired in 2004, Kuhl’s Republican party was in the majority. This time around, Kuhl faces a second battle against Corning Democrat Eric Massa and a Democratic majority in the Senate and House of Representatives.

“(In 2006) I was cast in a position to defend the Republicans, even though I wasn’t there, for what had been, at that point, 12 years,” he said. “I don’t have to defend Nancy Pelosi and the Democrats.”

While many of the same issues need to be addressed by the next Congress, Kuhl said, one issue that is not as prominent is the U.S. military’s presence in Iraq.

“The war is not an issue (like it was in 2006),” he said. “It’s a totally different issue.”

In 2006, he said, the issue was at the forefront, as repeated terrorist attacks on troops in the Middle East divided voters and representatives. While he was not in Congress when the war began, Kuhl said, the issue to provide funding for the war often became politicized.

“The question was ‘do you support the troops,” he said. “I was skeptical of the surge.”

The surge worked, he said, adding many of those same troops are coming home. Another problem, Kuhl said, is Democrats spreading misinformation, including a press release Friday that announced an internal GOP memo stated that 11 seats — including Kuhl’s — are considered “written off.”

As of August, Kuhl had raised $1.05 million for his campaign and $415,787 from individuals, while Massa had raised $1.33 million for his campaign — with just over $1 million coming from individuals, according the Federal Election Commission’s Web site.

Kuhl attributed the higher fundraising to the Democratic majority and money coming in from across the country.

“There’s an active Democratic organization nationwide,” Kuhl said, adding there is not the same support for the minority Republican Party.

'A district congressman’

“You’ve got to sit down and take stock of yourself and figure out where you are in the world,” Kuhl said. “I decided I was going to be a district congressman.”

As a “district congressman,” Kuhl said, he focused on the needs of this district and on what he knew about, which meant he requested positions on the House Committee on Agriculture, the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee and the House Committee on Education and Labor.

That meant he has not spent much time on defense and foreign affairs as some congressmen.
“You can’t do everything,” he said. The biggest challenge — and the reason Kuhl’s looking for a third term – is creating more jobs in the district. There have been strides to create jobs locally, Kuhl said, which have met with some success.

One example, he said, has been the string of successful small wineries along the Finger Lakes — aided by a state commission he helped found when serving in the state Legislature and helped fund with federal specialty crop subsidies — which appeared beginning in the 1980s.

During the 1980s, Kuhl noted, several large wineries in the area shut down, putting many workers out on the street and leaving growers to find alternatives for their grapes.

“Many of them decided to start wineries,” he said. “They backfilled all of those jobs.”

The dozens of wineries dotting the Finger Lakes since then also created a large tourism trade for the area, bringing in more revenue for local businesses.

Similar trends have been seen in technology industries. A large number of small firms have risen up since large corporations like Kodak, Xerox and Corning have lost thousands of jobs in recent decades, helping find some of those employees work. There are still many challenges, as getting small businesses rolling take time and resources.

“When you lose 1,000 jobs, it’s hard to start 100 small businesses to hire 10 employees,” Kuhl said. The lack of new jobs, Kuhl said, means many new college graduates who either are from the area or went to some of the district’s colleges must move elsewhere to find work.

But additional aid to the district’s infrastructure — which Kuhl said he has fought for against larger states like California and Texas — are helping the area.

“We are what they call a ‘donee’ state,” he said, adding the state receives more money back from the government for transportation funding than it puts in, compared to state’s like Texas with huge oil industries — and tax revenues.

The aid, he said, also expanded new funds to cities like New York and Washington to upgrade their mass transit systems — which means more railcar renovation business for local companies like Alstom, TTA and Bombardier.

But to keep the funding flowing, Kuhl added, something needs to be done about the $10 trillion in national debt the U.S. owes.

Kuhl said the best bet would be to submit a constitutional amendment to require the government to pass balanced budgets every year, meaning the funding for each proposal must be allocated and not borrowed.

Balancing the budget, he said, will take some discipline.

“There are places through the entire system where you can trim back,” Kuhl said, adding high prices for products like name-brand prescription drugs increase the costs to the Medicare and Medicaid systems, while programs for elaborate and non-vital Department of Defense programs also could be cut.

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